The weekend before going back to uni I headed off to Paris to stay with one of my best friends and to take in the sights of a city I've seen countless times on screen but somehow never actually visited despite my many, many visits to France so far. I got the Thalys from Brussels straight into Gare du Nord, which was a surprisingly quick and pleasant journey. The train was what can only be described as swish, and it only took approximately an hour and 20 minutes - the wonders of European inter-city travel!
The first thing we did was head back to my friend's student accommodation where she's been living for the past six months on her year abroad. We only needed to leave my bag but I took the opportunity to take a couple of photos of the stereotypical Parisian rooftops, which I couldn't get enough of throughout the trip.
Then we walked along the Seine past Notre Dame to Shakespeare & Company which I'd been wanting to visit for oh so long. It definitely didn't disappoint and we spent a while browsing the crooked shelves and coming across room after room of books stacked from floor to ceiling, from new titles to old library books. I didn't actually buy anything, mostly because I didn't want to have to carry it for the rest of the day, but also because there was simply too much choice! Looking back the trip felt like a little nod to my blog's time as 'bibliophilia', a reference to my love of books.
After grabbing some lunch in Pret (of all places, our justification for not finding somewhere more authentically French was basically just that we were starving and it was close by), we headed to the Louvre. I hadn't quite anticipated the sheer size of the place - it stretched on and on through room after room so we had to be selective, and ended up mostly just seeing the Mona Lisa and the Napoleon III apartments which were simply stunning.
We then walked along the Champs-Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe where we trekked all the way to the top and nearly died in the process, collapsing thankfully into some well-placed seats at the top of the steps. The view was amazing, and we spent a while walking around looking at Paris from every possible angle. By this time it was nearly getting dark so the lights from the Champs-Elysées and the other main streets were all lit up, and of course the rooftops were very aesthetically-pleasing.
Next thing on the list was dinner, and since we were planning to go up the Eiffel Tower at night we walked in that direction and hope to come across a cheap-ish restaurant with vegetarian options along the way. This turned out to be a mistake as we encountered basically none and ended up resorting to Google Maps to find an Italian, which required us to actually walk past the tower (pausing to watch it sparkle on the hour) until we found one. In the end we went to a fairly small place and demolished some amazing pizzas which tasted all the better for having spent best part of an hour walking around beforehand!
The final stop of the day was the Eiffel Tower itself, where we paid to get the lift from the second level right to the top. I'm not too bad with heights but the section of winding stairs between the first and second levels on a cold January evening was not the most stable-feeling experience of my life and I had to grip the handrail tightly to avoid feeling like I was about to fall off. Needless to say we got there with no mishaps and queued for the lift, which was an ear-popping experience in itself as we zoomed up to the top which stands at a staggering 324m high. By now it was completely dark so the streets were lit up like the veins of the city and the view was incredible (unfortunately my camera skills in the freezing cold and dark were less so).
The next day was Sunday (even though it felt like I'd been there for at least a week, it had been such a busy first day!), and we had breakfast at Fragments, a small café in the 11e arrondissement which had what I call 'Flat White vibes', meaning it was similar to my favourite café back in Durham. We both had avocado toast and instagrammed it because we're millennials.
As it was the first Sunday of the month a lot of the national monuments and museums had free entry, which we took advantage of in our trip to the Centre Pompidou, a modern and contemporary art museum which sticks out due to its bizarre industrial architecture. We were pretty exhausted from all the walking at this point so we did a lot of looking at the art in short bursts followed by sitting down for a while! This is a photo of one of my favourite paintings that we saw.
After a quick stop in the gallery's gift shop we grabbed a coffee and a cinnamon roll and walked (more walking!) to the Musée d'Orsay, where we queued for what seemed like ages to get in - I think half of Paris had cottoned onto the free entry thing! Again we decided to be selective as we barely had an hour, so mostly just looked at the Van Goghs, the Impressionists, and the Art Nouveau section. The building itself used to be a train station and so had beautiful architecture.
Then there was just about time to head back to my friend's accommodation to pick up my bag before finding somewhere for dinner near the train station, which ended up being a vegan restaurant/café called 'Juicy & Tasty' where we had some amazing wraps.
Finally I got the train back to Brussels, and that was it for my first trip to Paris!
x
